An Idiot's Guide covers basketball?! What does that have to do with superheroes and comics? Read on and find out!

This is An Idiot's Guide to Superheroes. It's part fact, part opinion, and part bullshitting my way through 75 years worth of literature that is both entertaining and slightly ridiculous. An Idiot's Guide to Superheroes is not meant to be taken 100% seriously nor is it 100% factual.

If you come away learning something new, I applaud you. Knowledge is power and knowing is half the battle...or something like that. Otherwise, I apologize for wasting the next five to ten minutes of your life.

An Idiot's Guide to Superheroes: Basketball and BetrayalWhat does LeBron James have to do with superheroes? Well, he's most certainly not one, that's for sure. Sure, he has a nickname (LeDouche Fuck), apparent superpowers (among them the ability to make incredulous empty promises and get people to believe him) and more daddy issues than Batman and Daredevil combined. Sure, it seemed like LePotato Head was one of the good guys, keeping a squeaky clean image in front of the camera. But it was all a ploy, a devious scheme to lull the city of Cleveland into a false sense of security. And when the time was ripe, when Cleveland needed him most, LeBenedict Arnold stabbed the city in the back, like some money-grubbing thug looking to make a quick buck in Crime Alley. Betrayal and heartbreak is the story of LeRingless James. And those make for some of the best comic book stories.

So in celebration of LeBronageddon 2010, here's a quick rundown of some stories to read if you feel like someone just stole your virginity, broke your heart and left you for a slutty South Beach whore.

1) The Thunderbolts: Justice, Like Lightning

The premise is simple: Bad guys pretend to be good guys for a while with the plan to fuck shit up when the public trusts them. Sound familiar? To run it down for you, Baron Zemo, an angry Nazi with father issues of his own, recruits a band of villains to pose as superheroes. Since the American public is a bunch of sheep who'll believe anything that ESPN tells them to, their plan is to gain the public's trust and infiltrate the top levels of national security. However, problems start popping up for Zemo when some of the pretend heroes start thinking they're actual heroes. Decisions must be made, some of them on national television, and something happens with alternate universes too.

2) The Death of Captain America

How would it feel to get shot with a time bullet in the back by your lover who happens to be pregnant with your unborn Super-baby soldier? Ask Steve Rogers who had this exact thing happen to him in Captain America #25. Having surrendered at the end of a superhero civil war for not understanding Myspace, Captain America is taken to a courthouse for an arraignment hearing. Suddenly, a sniper starts picking off people in the crowd, leading to chaos. Using the distraction, a brainwashed Sharon Carter uses a special time gun to shoot time bullets into the gut of her boyfriend. Moral: Never allow yourself to be taken into custody over Myspace.

3) X-Men

You can't have a good X-Men story without a little bit of betrayal. Jean Grey went evil. So did Bishop, right before he started a giant vendetta against babies. Magneto went good, then went good, then went evil again. Juggernaut went evil, then good, then evil, then sorta good but not really, but people should still be afraid of him because he's the Juggernaut, bitch! And then there's Emma Frost's apparent betrayals every other arc, only to be part of some grand plan. With all the side switching, it's no wonder that no body in the Marvel universe trusts mutants.

4) Green Lantern: Emerald Twilight

What happens when a hometown hero can't save his city from embarrassment and destruction? Go to South Beach and puss out? No, you go berserk and screw up the entire galaxy! Green Lantern Hal Jordan finds that his beloved Coast City has been destroyed in a sinister plot involving astronauts and spherical ball bombs. The Green Lantern airs his grievances in an open letter in which he states that "Coast City deserves better than this inexcusable betrayal" in comic sans font. Then he goes apeshit on his Green Lantern Corps, killing a bunch of them and taking out the source of their power. No worries though, crazy Hal Jordan was replaced by hipster Kyle Rayner for a while until it comes out that Hal was actually possessed by a yellow fear bug named D-Wade. Luckily, D-Wade was exorcised from Hal, Coast City got rebuilt, and everyone pleasantly forgets that any of this happen.

5) Identity Crisis

What's the best way of admitting that you're not over your ex? According to Jean Loring, the ex-wife of the DC superhero known as the Atom, it's to steal your ex-husband's shrinking belt and play hopscotch on the brain of a beloved wife of a C-List superhero and then torch her body when it doesn't go well. That's the shocking twist of Identity Crisis, the popular and controversial mini-series which also featured Batman getting mind wiped by the Justice League after he got in the way of the lobotomy of one Doctor Light. Batman, being Batman, unmind-wipes himself and gets all pissy with the JLA, leading directly to Infinite Crisis.

6) Tower of Babel

Batman has plans to kick all of his friends' asses. Someone gets those plans. Asses get kicked. Batman doesn't feel that bad because he's Batman and is better than everyone else anyway.

That's just an abbreviated list of some of the more notable modern betrayals in comic book history. Feel free to bash LeDoofus or add your own notable comic book betrayals in the comments!

Help spread the word, loyal readers! Share this story on social media:

Comment without an Outhouse Account using Facebook

We get it. You don't feel like signing up for an Outhouse account, even though it's FREE and EASY! That's okay. You can comment with your Facebook account below and we'll take care of adding it to the stream above. But you really should consider getting a full Outhouse account, which will allow you to quote posts, choose an avatar and sig, and comment on our forums too. If that sounds good to you, sign up for an Outhouse account by clicking here.

Note: while you are welcome to speak your mind freely on any topic, we do ask that you keep discussion civil between each other. Nasty personal attacks against other commenters is strongly discouraged. Thanks!

Help spread the word, loyal readers! Share this story on social media:

About the Author - Christian

Christian is the exasperated Abbott to the Outhouse's Costello. When he's not yelling at the Newsroom for upsetting readers or complaining to his wife about why the Internet is stupid, he sits in his dingy business office trying to find new ways to make the site earn money. Christian is also the only person in history stupid enough to moderate two comic book forums at once.